Thursday, August 18, 2011

Review – Quick To The Hunt By Cameron Dane

War veteran Hunter Tennison returns home physically and emotionally scarred. Unable to bear feeling anything, Hunter uses pain to quiet the chaos and to keep his emotions from destroying him. Hunter dare not risk falling in love. He can’t let anyone get close enough to see the violence inside him.

In business and relationships, Alexander Quick is practical and rational. The first time Alex looks into Hunter’s eyes, he sees the damaged soul within, and adamantly tells himself not to get involved. Too many things could go haywire with a volatile man like Hunter, and Alex doesn’t enter into relationships where he cannot predict the outcome.

Then Alex learns his mentor is ill. The news sends him reeling. Alex suddenly sees his life isn’t as perfect as he thought. An ache for something meaningful stirs in Alex, and Hunter’s broken soul draws him in like a beacon on the blackest night.

Two men, one running like hell from love and the other opening himself to the emotion for the first time, collide. Hunter and Alex begin a darkly sexual relationship bound to explode. In the aftermath, can Alex make Hunter believe their love is powerful enough to heal his scars?

Review:

Gut-wrenching. Painful. Intense. Dark. Some of the words to describe CameronDane’sQuick to the Hunt. In between the pages of this book, I lost myself, becoming fully engrossed in the lives of Hunter Tennison and Alexander Quick.

Hunter’s scarred. Yes on the outside since he’s recently back from Afghanistan, but that’s nothing compared to the mental. He’s haunted and in pain. The only way to cope is to cut himself. Those scenes are so heart-breaking, so painful to read, that thinking about them brings tears to my eyes. Ms. Dane puts the reader in the midst of all that turmoil, all that darkness, and allows us to feel as Hunter does. To breath as he does. To experience that burn as he does.

Superb descriptions.

Quick isn’t for the faint of heart, it isn’t for those who can’t stomach self mutilation. The darkness in this story is pretty tough to take. Hunter can’t stand to be around his family, his friends. He’s not the man they once knew. Despite the need to distance himself from people in general, only one man holds his interest and becomes his focal point.

Alex always has a plan, always knows how to fix any problem that arise. He can’t fix Hunter. He can’t save him. The realization isn’t easy.

The chemistry between these two men, both so different, is explosive. To describe the love scenes as hot is as inadequate as describing the sun as the same. It is not enough to say hot or scorching.

Flammable, maybe. Two scenes stick out: the first time Hunter and Alex come together. So violent, fierce. Explosive. That word again. My heart skipped several beats watching them love on each other, watching Hunter take and take, and Alex give when he’s not used to. The second scene comes after Alex confesses his feelings and scares away Hunter who declares he doesn’t want anything personal between them. Alex takes control, showing him why everything between them is personal. That love scene really made me feel like a true voyeur. I shouldn’t have been witness to something as powerful, gripping and just plain carnal as that.

I shouldn’t have, but thank Heaven I was.

I adore Cameron Dane’s writing. She yanks the reader into the worlds she’s created kicking and screaming, thrusting wave upon wave of emotion on you. There’s no way you can then walk away unscathed. You can’t. Those characters stay with you.

Nothing about Quick is simple, nothing is easy. Flawed characters abound here, mistakes and second chances as well. Tears and heartbreak live between its pages. I wanted to, if only to wrap Hunter and Alex up in my arms and rock them. At the end of Quick, I cursed. I didn’t want it to end, didn’t want to say goodbye to these men. Their story resonated with me on so many personal levels.

It’s hard for someone to make you bawl the way Ms. Dane did with Quick to the Hunt and still find yourself asking—nay, begging for more.